by Clever Mafuta and Joshua Chigodora
Southern Africa has recorded a bumper harvest this year after four years of poor crop due to drought averting the need for global food aid to the region at a time when cereal supplies are shrinking and hand-outs tightening.
Most SADC countries received good rains during the 1995196 season which enabled farmers to increase the hectares under crops, improved grazing for livestock and made available more water for irrigation of winter crops.
The SADC Food Security Quarterly reports that the region expects a surplus of2. 08 million tonnes of maize, staple food for more than two-thirds of the region’s population.
The bumper harvest is expected to boost the region’s food reserves which were at their lowest levels or non-existent in some countries, after four consecutive poor agricultural seasons due to drought. The region was forced to depend on food aid which was costly to donor agencies. The costs have gone much higher this year, according to UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
“Sharp increases in cereal prices on the world market and the higher cost of cereal imports, coupled with balance of payments difficulties in food-deficit in African countries, mean that a large proportion of food imports of the region (sub- Saharan Africa) will need to be covered by food aid,’’ FAO said in a recent report.
While not all SADC countries have had good harvests, the needs of deficit countries will be met through imports from within the region’s major producers – South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe – which have surpluses. South Africa alone has about 2.5 million tonnes while Zimbabwe has over 200 000 tonnes of maize for export.
In Zambia, exports permits have already been issued for 50 000 million tonnes of maize meal. Prospects of a bumper winter wheat harvest are also bright due to adequate water for irrigation particularly in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Even though Mozambique’s cereal harvest was badly hit by floods which washed away 170 000 hectares of crops this year, its yield is still very high. The World Food Programme/Food and Agriculture Organisation (WFP/FAO) team that assessed that country’s situation said that the crop yield is the largest since independence in 1975.
The team also said Angola and Mozambique are gradually beginning to reap the dividends of peace, as planting areas have increased in the past farming season although food aid is still needed.
The highly productive area in northern Mozambique expects a maize surplus, but it might be costly to move it over 2 500 kilometres to the grain deficit areas in the south.
Antallo Olivares of Mozambique’s Natiooal Early Warning Unit said recently, “It is cheaper to import maize from South Africa which is 100 km away than to buy and transport grain from Pemba to Maputo which are 2 000 km apart.”
Angola, Lesotho, Namibia and Tanzania did not receive enough rainfall, and hence will face food shortages. The countries will need to import from neighbouring countries in the region to feed their nationals.
FAO cites a combination of unfavourable factors for threatening sub-Saharan Africa’s progress towards food security, including a 9.5-million-ton drop in aggregate cereal production compared to
1994 level and international cereal prices that have risen by more than 50 percent over the past year.
Tanzania is expected to get 3.73 million tonnes of food this season – a 14 percent drop over last year’s output of 4.34 million tonnes.
This has been attributed to a late start of rains and pests, particularly the Red Locust.
“Despite increased acreage under food cultivation and fairly good rains this year we could still end with a grain deficit in the harvest which starts in July and August in many parts of the country”, said a Tanzanian weekly, Sunday Observer.
Poor growing conditions m Pemba Island during the start of the 1995\96 crop season caused food shortages. A survey conducted by the Zanzibar Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources indicates that 136,000 people, or 37 percent of the Island’s population, are at risk of famine during the 1995\96 agricultural marketing season. While most southern African states received above average rainfall amounts, for Namibia it was a second year of below-normal rainfall. The cereal crop, though above that of last year, is still slightly below average due to low harvest from the commercial maize sector.
To avert a famine disaster, President Sam Nujoma recently announced emergency measures to provide assistance to the country’s most affected areas. These include a SN92.4 million (USS 25.67 million) government allocation to provide food to the vulnerable population and drought relief to the agricultural and livestock sectors.
The government is also encouraging farmers to sell some of their livestock while at the same time providing assistance in the form of subsided fodder to maintain a core herd of livestock and avoid further losses.
Although the SADC Regional Early Warning Unit estimates that Lesotho will harvest almost twice the amount of maize this year compared to 1995 from 72 000 tonnes to almost 140 000 tonnes — food is still scarce. Historically, Lesotho, even in years of good harvests, produces only half of its national food requirements.
The people in Lesotho highlands do not expect enough grain to last until the next season. The Lesotho Red Cross Society estimates that this year’s crop will last until August this year.
”I think most of the people would have enough food up to August as you can see the cobs are very small. We have to prepare for drought relief now,” says Neo Ramarou, the Lesotho Red Cross Society Disaster Preparedness Officer.
Crops, particularly maize, were hit by early frost in March 1996. The frost seriously reduced the size and quality of the maize crop. Some of the affected farmers do not expect anything at all. “My friend, what you see there are just stalks that are only good for animals winter feed. I hope you will go and tell them that we still need food here,” points out Palesa Lenka, a local farmer. Almost 90 percent of Lesotho is above 2 000 metres and covered by mountains.
The country is almost treeless and has experienced serious environmental degradation and nearly three quarters of the country’s estimated 1.7 million people are subsistence farmers in the rural areas.
According to Lesotho’s National Disaster Management Authority, environmental degradation and other factors have reduced the country’s arable land “from around 15 percent during the last decade to about nine percent, and much of it are strips of land on steep mountains areas”.
Livestock farming is a thriving industry in comparison to crop production. However, this business has led to pressure on land, compounding the land degradation problem. In addition, the traditional maize no longer grows well in most parts of the country.
Traditionally, the people used to adopt coping mechanisms, but these have since been done away with especially with the dissolution of the extended family system.
To ensure no food deficits occur in future, sou1hem African governments are building up strategic grain reserves in their countries. Malawi. South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have already established grain reserves.
In Malawi, the United States Development Agency (USAID) has pledged to support the government in the establishment of the Strategic Grain Reserves while the European Union has provided funds to purchase 20 000 million tonnes of maize for the reserve.
However, with such a bumper harvest in the region, the challenge is to maintain buffer stocks from own production. The region could further increase agricultural output, by growing drought resistant crops like rapoko, millet, sorghum and cassava.
The main obstacle, SADC experts say, is the shortage of seed, especially drought-resistant varieties. This, they say, is the major source of crop failure and food shortages.
To boost food production, agriculturalists are calling diversification into food and cash crops, and livestock. A combination of agricultural and nee-agricultural activities such as crafts is also being encouraged. (SARDC)
